Paradoxically, it also became more challenging, because a
rabbit reporting the weather could get boring fast! Coming up with a new
single-image visual idea for a character every day is not easy. If I’ve gained
anything from InkTober, it is a greater appreciation for daily newspaper
cartoonists, who have to do it year-round, not just the 31 days of October.

10/26/16

After seeing the adventures of Weather Bunny, a few of my
Facebook and Instagram followers suggested that I could try my hand at
cartooning. I can’t see that happening – I love drawing from life too much to
devote time to developing visual fictional characters. But I’m pleased that
InkTober gave me an opportunity to discover what can happen when I challenge
myself with something new and different.

And yet there’s nothing new and different about it at all. The
little cartoons I’ve been doing this month are very similar to the kinds I used
to make so easily and regularly when I was a kid. I remember writing and
drawing entire stapled-together books of characters and their stories that I
had created. Somehow during the next five
decades, I lost that ability. I’m grateful that it took only a month to get
it back.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

When I was a kid, our Halloween tradition was to get a
pumpkin from the grocery store. (Back then, the only choice was the ordinary
orange kind – not the 76 varieties of stripes, spots, multi colors and gross
warts that you can get now.) I would use a marker to draw the face. I hated the
mess of cleaning out the guts, so my mom got stuck with that task. Finally my
dad would use his pocket knife to carve my design. A candle would go inside,
and our Jack-o-lantern would greet trick-or-treaters on the porch on Halloween
night.

10/28/16 brush pen, colored pencils

Friday afternoon brought back those fun memories for
me at the Northgate Community Center,
whichsponsored a free pumpkin
carving contest. I get enough of cleaning out squash guts whenever we have them
for dinner, so I declined on the free pumpkin. Instead, I brought my sketchbook.

Wherever I looked, families were hard at work. I was
impressed by all the kids who took their task very seriously. Wincing a bit, I watched
a young girl wielding a grown-up knife to carve her pumpkin with much care and determination.
Another young girl held a paint brush in each hand to decorate hers. Some kids
simply enjoyed scooping out pumpkin innards with their bare hands.

10/28/16 brush pen, colored pencils

Children weren’t the only ones being creative. While dad
entertained the child, a mom wearing a festive fairy tiara plopped a huge
pumpkin in her lap and followed a design worked out on paper as she carved.

Since I don’t have any young kids in my life, this is the
kind of community event I probably would have skipped before I became a
sketcher. But with my sketchbook, I got to join the fun – without all the
sticky pumpkin guts.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Swansons Nursery
has been a favorite location for the Friday sketchers for several years now. A
mainstay during the holidays when it brings in reindeer, camel and Santa, Swansons was also fun last spring. Now we have a new season
to add to our Swansons lineup: Halloween! Decked out in plenty of pumpkins and
fall décor, the north Seattle plant nursery also has adorable Nigerian dwarf
goats and a hay maze.

10/28/16 brush pen, colored pencil

At the beginning of the meetup, I went over to the goat pen
first and had it nearly to myself. I took advantage of the relative quiet to do
several studies of Tootsie Roll, Buttermilk Pancakes and tiny Mega Man.

Eventually the toddler set took over, so I moved out to
Swansons’ main outdoor retail area. Sunshine broke through the overcast sky, and
it was warm enough to eventually take my jacket off as I sketched the dinosaur
topiary and surrounding greenery. (When we go back in December, I’m guessing we
won’t be as lucky, weather-wise.)

When I went into the café for a break, a toddler at the next
table caught my eye. If I thought the constantly moving dwarf goats were a
challenge to sketch, they couldn’t hold a candle to this little guy, who gave
me about 5 seconds to catch this pose.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Yesterday at Gage life drawing, I alternately used two very
different drawing tools: One was a Pentel Color Brush, which is one of my favorite brush pens for life drawing because
the reservoir puts out an even flow of ink and keeps the brush tip juicy for
loose drawings. It’s very similar to using paint except more convenient.

The second was a graphite pencil, but it’s amusingly called
a “brush pencil.” Made by Uni Mitsubishi, its grade is 10B, and I think it’s the softest graphite pencil
I’ve ever used. It’s not as soft as charcoal, of course, but it’s still soft
enough that I could smudge it lightly with a finger for shading without making
too much of a mess (my biggest complaint about charcoal, which I detest, is the
huge mess it makes). I generally prefer liquid media when the model is doing really
short poses, but the “brush pencil” is so soft that it glides over paper very
quickly, almost like liquid. I’m not a huge graphite fan, but I like this
pencil a lot.

My favorite sketch of the day is the one at the very bottom
of the page. I’ve sketched many, many people using their smart phones, but
generally they are clothed. The model was checking messages during his break,
so he wasn’t posing. Technically, it’s an urban sketch. :-)

To my delight, Field Notes has come out with a limited
edition that not only has sketch-friendly paper – its theme resonates deeply
with me. It’s the Fall 2016 Lunacy edition,
which celebrates the moon in all phases.

Even if the paper had been mediocre, I would have used these
just because I love the die-cut covers exposing the moon’s image printed on the
flysheet, its “dark side” embossed on the back cover, and the lunar factoids
inside. So you can imagine my joy when, after testing the 60-pound paper with
all my usual favorite sketching media, it turned out that it’s almost ideal for
the kind of casual sketches I put into this type of notebook.

The reverse side shows no bleeding or ghosting,even where I applied water.

Lunacy's sizing (left) is very similar to Workshop Companion's (right).

I say almost
because blank would have been better than the reticle graph ruling (but I know
I’m in a very small minority of Field Notes users who prefer unruled pages;
most use them for writing, not drawing). And white paper would be my preference
over pale gray (too pale to use for toned drawings, which the red Sweet Tooth
paper is excellent for). Still, the reticle marks are printed with such low
contrast to the paper that they’re very easy to ignore; I hardly notice them at
all (I’m not even sure how effective they would be in helping someone write
straight).

Here's the reverse side of another Field Notesedition with 60 lb. paper but a very differentsizing that allowed all my pens to bleed through.

When I first started InkTober,
I used another Field Notes book containing a very smooth 60-pound paper, but
all my markers bled right through (reverse side of paper shown at left). So it was with some trepidation on my first
day with a Lunacy that I scribbled with my juiciest fountain pens, brush pens
and other markers. Lunacy’s paper took all my inks well – none feathered or bled
through. I’ve come to learn that a paper’s weight is not nearly as important as
its sizing.

Then I gave it the ultimate test (for paper in simple
notebooks like this, which obviously aren’t intended for wet media): I gave a
few fountain pen lines a quick wash with a waterbrush. The ink not only washed
beautifully – it still didn’t bleed through! The sizing compares favorably to
Workshop Companion’s paper, which is actually an even heavier 70-pound weight.

Sailor fude fountain pen ink line washed lightly with water.

Lunacy's moderate tooth takes colored pencils beautifully.

Although some fountain pen users might find Lunacy’s surface
toothier than would be ideal, I have no qualms with it. In fact, the bit of
tooth takes colored pencils nicely (and probably graphite, though I’m not much
of a graphite user).

Now that I’ve finished filling my first Lunacy, I’m
convinced that it is as close to being the perfect pocket notebook for my needs
as any I have tried. Let the hoarding begin.

In somewhat related Field Notes news, I was recently
inspired by other creative Field Notes users who have disassembled and
reassembled their notebooks to switch various covers and papers. I enjoy having
both a toned (red) paper notebook and a white one, but I don’t want to have to
carry two books. So I took apart a Workshop Companion and a red Sweet Tooth,
and I reassembled them with alternating red and cream-colored pages. When I’m
not using a Lunacy (or the elusive bright-orange-papered EEEK Field Notes,
another favorite but much harder to come by), I’ll use one of my hacked “Sweet
Companion” notebooks.

A couple of years ago I was ranting about how none of the Field
Notes ever meets my sketching needs, and now I have several choices! My sketching
life is indeed sweet.

Brush pen

I filled my first Lunacy with InkTober sketches and just starteda second one -- this time with a full moon!

Sunday, October 23, 2016

I’ve lived near Green Lake for almost 30 years, walked
around it at least weekly year-round, and sketched there more often than at any
other park (164 results came up in my Flickr photostream search of “Green Lake”). When I see the same things day after day, they sometimes become invisible.
That’s what made this morning’s Urban Sketchers outing in the Green Lake neighborhood
especially rich for me: I had the opportunity to see very familiar places and
things through other sketchers’ eyes, and they became fresh for me again.

10/23/16 brush pen, colored pencils

For my own sketches, I seemed to have been in a tree mood. Suzanneand I both set our stools down near
Starbucks facing the two rows of magnificent old trees leading from the street
to the community center. I’ve sketched those trees many times, but I never tire
of them. This time I chose an angle with the playfield behind them.

After that I walked to the street next to the La Escuelita
Bilingual School, where the cherry trees had lost most of their leaves. I was
tempted to give them more color, but I am ever “truthful to the scenes I
witness” (maybe to a fault).

I forgot to take a photo of our sketchbook throwdown, but at
least a couple dozen sketchers must have made it today. We lucked out with mild
weather and even sunshine by noon!

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Three weeks into InkTober,
I think my personal objective of making more sketches from imagination is
finally taking hold. When I first started, I gave myself the theme of “adult coloring book,” thinking that would
be general enough that I wouldn’t have to be tied to any specific subject
matter. If I were sketching things I see in my daily life, I think that plan
would have worked well. But it didn’t take me long to realize that when I’m
sketching from imagination, having a wide-open theme with no specific subject
is actually harder, not easier. It became clear that other InkTober
participants already knew this; I am seeing several working from very specific
themes that probably make it easier for them to begin their drawings each day.

10/16/16

As it turned out, a theme emerged on its own when the
cartoon rabbit I had drawn sporadically the first two weeks started reporting on our daily weather conditions last weekend.
I’m going to continue letting Weather Bunny report the weather when he wants
to, and when he doesn’t, he can report on his lunch!

In addition, I’m discovering that the rabbits I drew as interpretations of photographs and the sketch I did yesterday at the Bruce Lee exhibit are another type of drawing. They are not fully
imaginative, nor are they drawings from life. They’re somewhere in between in
that I start with a visual prompt but have to let my imagination do some of the
work while capturing nothing but the essence in a fluid brush pen line. Challenging
in a very different way, this type of sketching is very enjoyable, too, and I plan to explore it further.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Always be yourself.
Express yourself. Have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a
successful personality and duplicate it.

The Wing Luke Museum
is now showing Part 3 of a traveling exhibition honoring Bruce Lee’s life. While the previous parts focused on his
TV and movie roles and family life, Part 3 of “Day in the Life of Bruce Lee” is
more about the man’s internal life. Through facsimiles of journals, poems,
letters and daily planners, visitors gain an intimate glimpse of his
philosophy, desires and self-improvement regimen as well as mundane to-do lists
and appointments.

Delicate drawings on wide-ruled school notebook paper and poems
drafted on restaurant letterhead had an off-hand, bittersweet quality, as if nothing
he put on paper was worth saving. As a lifelong journal writer and daily
planner keeper, I found it fascinating and slightly voyeuristic to peek at the
handwritten pages of his Day Timer and small memo books that were similar to
what I use myself.

Particularly heartbreaking was a goals statement he had
written through year 1980: Bruce Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32.

These were some of the other quotations found in his
personal writings (advice to himself) that I jotted in my own notebook:

“Stop wasting time in playing a role or concept. Instead,
learn to actualize yourself, your potential.”

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until
defeat has been accepted as a reality. Defeat simply tells me that something is
wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.”

“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice that
can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”

Since the exhibit consisted of two-dimensional photos and ephemeral
papers, I couldn’t find anything to sketch. However, I used a brush pen to try
to capture his iconic stance that was shown in an enlarged photograph on one
wall of the exhibit.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

If you know what it is, then you’ll sympathize. Of course,
the “prep” is the worst part, and mine happened to fall yesterday during the
final Presidential debate. Knowing I would have to spend much of the evening
there, I decided to set up camp with my laptop in one of our bathrooms so that
I could sketch the candidates.

I also sketched the second debate last week. Unfortunately,
we were eating dinner while viewing that one, and it killed my appetite. My
GoLytely experience was more satisfying.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Although our storm last weekend was lackluster compared to
the Armageddon that the media had led us to expect, the wind was still strong
enough to take down a lot of leaves (and even a few trees in some areas). This
is the same aspen I sketched a couple weeks ago when it was still bright yellow.

Monday, October 17, 2016

If you’ve seen some of the fruit and vegetable still lifes I’ve been doing in colored pencils
lately, you know that my approach has been to be fairly tight and detailed. I
enjoy that approach when using colored pencils with some subjects, but this
bouquet seemed to demand a looser, more painterly approach. It’s harder to be
loose with colored pencils compared to watercolor, but I like that I can have
some control over the looseness (Contradictory? Probably).

The bouquet was from Greg for our 27th
anniversary last Friday. :-) And here’s something else that relates our
anniversary to sketching:

Our wedding took place at the top of the Smith Tower, which has always been one of our favorite buildings
in Seattle. Years ago the Seattle Sketcher sketched the tower (it appears on the cover of his book), and I once asked Gabi Campanario if I could buy that original sketch. Of course, the
sketch belonged to the Seattle Times,
so he couldn’t sell it to me, even though the original was just sitting in a
flat file in his office. Undeterred, I went directly to the Times and asked if I could buy it; I was referred to the
reproductions department, where I could buy a print. A print might have been
OK, but by then I had my heart set on owning the original.

Fast-forward to a few months ago when I had noticed that
Gabi was starting to sell both originals and prints of his personal work on his website.
I decided I didn’t have to have the one that he had made several years ago – I would
simply commission him to make me a new one! So I did, and just in time to
surprise Greg with it on our anniversary, I received the beautiful sketch from
Gabi.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Week 2 of InkTober2016 is done, and it was something of a
struggle for me. The early part of the week began well with a pair of gestural sumi-e-like sketches of a running rabbit
inspired by photos on the Internet. Then Sunday evening when I felt my blood
pressure rise while watching the Presidential debate, I decided to bring it
back down by sketching the candidates.
I felt much better immediately, and sketching from the TV was something I’d
never done before, so it fit with my InkTober goal to try new challenges.

But the next few days, especially when I was short on time, I
found myself falling back on old habits again and simply sketching whatever birdbathor potted plant I happened to see. As an urban sketcher, drawing from
life comes so easily to me that it’s almost second nature. I’m not saying the act of drawing itself is easy – that part
is always a challenge on some level – but choosing
something to sketch from life is the easy part and requires almost no thinking
at all.

10/14/16 Copic Gasenfude brush pen

On Thursday I gave myself a swift kick in the rear to get
back to my goal of making imaginary sketches, and I kept at it through today. Sometimes
I managed to conjure up an image in my mind and get it out on the page. Other
times when I had an image in mind but couldn’t quite get started with the
sketch, I would search for photos on the Internet for something close, then
work from that, which I found immensely helpful.

I was reminded of the
article by Jake Parker, founder of InkTober, talking about how it takes him
the first 10 days to get past his “old tricks” before he can get to new and exciting
work. I’m not going so far as to hope for “new and exciting,” but I am finding
that every time I make a sketch from imagination, the next one is a bit easier.
I’m looking forward to the second half of the month to see where it takes me.

Not me – I retreated to PCC’s café, where I sketched the
salad bar. Shortly after I arrived, Frank Chingcame in, so I sketched him. When we shared sketches over lunch, I was
impressed by those who sheltered under awnings and in doorways – at least until
the rain started pouring sideways – to capture the neighborhood.

The worst of the storm is not supposed to hit until tomorrow
afternoon, when I intend to be safely bundled up at home, flashlights and
candles at the ready. Hope the rest of you locals are all safely indoors by then, too!